Industrial facilities such as factories, manufacturing plants, and warehouses, have traditionally relied on human-operated material-transport vehicles to move parts, inventory, and materials within the facility. For example, human-operated material-transport vehicles can be used to provide line-side delivery of parts to a just-in-time assembly line.
Advancements in material-transport vehicles have included driverless vehicles such as automated-guided vehicles (“AGVs”). In some cases, AGVs may be used advantageously owing to a higher-degree of automation as compared to traditional material-transport vehicles.
However, despite technological advancements in certain types of material-transport vehicles, the need for human-operated material-transport vehicles remains. In some cases, certain types of automated or driverless material-transport vehicles lack the capabilities of traditional material-transport vehicles, such as the ability to lift and/or manipulate payloads of varying complexities, the ability to navigate quickly in tight spaces, the ability to recognize and react to complex situations, or the ability to drive anywhere within a facility without relying on a navigational strip or guide. While there may be some advantages to using driverless vehicles, many scenarios involving material-transport vehicles still rely on the skill and judgement of a human operator.
Furthermore, it is often prohibitively expensive to replace existing traditional material-transport vehicle fleets in their entirety, and, therefore, certain aspects of the material-transport vehicle infrastructure may be upgraded to newer types of material-transport vehicles, while existing traditional human-operated vehicles are left to coexist with the newer systems within a facility.